Thank you to the readers of the posts Monday and Tuesday. Readers were asked to contact the University of Kentucky and ask that the billboard benefiting Ryan Quarles’ political candidacy be taken down. At first, on Monday, the requests were turned down. But somehow, on Tuesday, for whatever reason, the right result was achieved, and UK agreed to take the billboard down. That result was not brought about by photographs being posted on a blog. It was brought about by concerned Kentuckians who recognized a wrong, and asked for it to be made right. As a result of the attention from those requests, a good thing happened. Thanks also to B&P and PageOne for linking on the issue.
In the same way that the intent behind the billboard didn’t matter as much as the bad result, it is also true that the reason that UK agreed to take the billboard down does not matter. Dr. Todd deserves thanks for doing the right thing.
Although his interview in the Lexington Herald-Leader did not acknowledge any recognition of any problem with the coordination of photographs or his misuse of the U.K. interview, whatever the reason, Republican State House of Representatives Candidate and U.K. College of Law student Ryan Quarles is also to be commended. Quarles appears to have ended his misuse of the U.K. interview on his Facebook campaign web site, which now appears to have been completely deactivated.
However, in an interview with the Lexington Herald-Leader after the coordination was identified, Quarles still shows a lack of basic perception of right and wrong, as he disingenously characterized the billboard as Quarles’ actions as an exemplary citizen and proudly doing something to help the University of Kentucky, when in fact the billboard was an unambiguous improper benefit to Ryan Quarles’ own political campaign.
In the article, he is quoted:
Quarles stressed that he’s one of several students in the promotional campaign. “I was honored,” he said. “I’m a proud Wildcat and happy to help my university.”
It would be preferable that Quarles would recognize and accept responsibility for his mistakes, but ending the misconduct is a very good first step. The ability to accept responsibility and learn from mistakes often comes with maturity. Perhaps Quarles will someday have the maturity to recognize wrongs and accept responsibility for them. However, Quarles will remain identified as unable to recognize two very substantial and clear misuses of public resources. And even after the problems were identified, in the above article, Quarles continues to fail to recognize the improper benefit he received from the billboard. Such misuses are a valid basis for evaluating his merit as a candidate.
Bob, thank you for bringing this mess to our attention, and for getting the mess cleaned up.
I wonder if the “apologist” for Mr. Quarles know just how stupid they appear?
Once again bob you are wrong, his facebook fan page is not deactivated, it’s still there with the link to his interview. It’s not using public funds to make a link to something you did, that interview would be open for anyone who wants to listen to it anyway. look on any politicians website there are links to interviews that they did, that they didn’t fund.
Quarles stressed that he’s one of several students in the promotional campaign. ‘I was honored,’ he said. ‘I’m a proud Wildcat and happy to help my university.’
as a fellow student, i’m very proud of mr. quarles for making this statement, proud that he recognizes that it was for the benefit of the university, and proud that he did not bother to address these concerns and instead focused on what was positive.
Anonymous at 11:53, you are correct about the Facebook page, but I was correct about it too. It was not active last night (three searches confirmed that). It is now.
That is a more serious mistake, and I appreciate you calling it to my attention. That means that Quarles has not taken any step to correct his misuse of public funds, and is not to be commended. This speaks volumes.
It is wrong for Quarles to use public funds to provide his campaign with a resource to promote itself, and it is doubly wrong for Quarles to use an interview on his campaign site which is personally conducted by the President of the University. So since he continues to use it, the question again must be asked and directed to UK: is this use by Quarles with the permission of UK?
Bob, it appears I was also not correct. I assumed public humiliation would be enough for the “apologist”. Who knew they would search through the wreckage of the destroyed billboard in hopes of finding a scrap of cloth, with which to cover their dump asses ?
In the last 30 years the republican’t party has committed only one mistake it acknowledges:
Allowing george h.w. bush to run for President as a republican’t; at the time he was, in their opinion, a Democrat – he raised taxes.
Guys, Quarles was the campaign chairman for Damon Thayer’s election a few years ago, and he is a third year law student, so he knows campaign law. I don’t. But I am also hearing that there are questions about whether the photographs and the interview are illegal under Kentucky’s campaign finance laws. This may be a long way from over.
Bob -
Do you have a concise time line of the events under discussion? It might help, especially Anonymous – since it has sooooooooooooo meny different personalities within the same disorderly identity, to keep references to actions in the past so blithely referenced by the use of impersonal pronouns.
Do you have a date certain that the campaign to recruit was adopted and also a date certain that the first overt action to implement the project was performed, as well as the first public date of the project, ie announcement, press conf., etc.
Jacques de timbre
One person has said they identified an April 2009 announcement from a a Google search where Quarles self-identified as a candidate. But the October date mentioned on Tuesday was when there were numerous press reports. And the photographs in the Kernel, the website and billboard were all taken by the Kernel staff photographer, which shows coordination.
Good job on bringing this to our attention.
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